speak about myself. How blind one is to one's own interest not to see that, putting it on one's own ground, it would pay much better to be an upright God-fearing man than anything else! Fortunately religion is a thing that one cannot acquire from such a motive, or I am sure I should have done so before this."

No doubt that their son should make such a confession, or any confession breathing of self-dissatisfaction, would be agreeable to the parentsto the Judge, who had spoken naughty words and been so sorry for them, and to the anxious religious mother, always longing after his spiritual advantage. But perhaps Laurence felt that he had been a little hard upon himself. He ends by hoping "there is no humbug in it. It is honest as far as I know, but don't believe in it implicitly,” he says; while in another letter he shows himself disposed to defend the "flexibility" of which he had just accused his own character and conscience. He is aware of "having Ferentcz's [an uncle] knack of making myself agreeable," but thinks it is to a great extent without any harm in it.

"If an old general likes to hear himself speak, why should you not look interested, however bored you may feel? why should you not take

ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN.

51

an interest in poor Mrs So-and-so, who has gone wrong, or been beaten by her husband, if Mrs General does? I got a tiffin out of an old couple at Benares simply in that way, and C. says, 'Why, I never saw such a fellow as you, Oliphant; you are a favourite everywhere immediately.' I do not give myself any credit for it, mind; on the contrary, nothing is easier, and I inherit it from your side of the house evidently. But the tendency I see to be bad in fact."

One may perhaps be inclined to wish that this tendency, to be agreeable and sympathetic, and to look interested even when you are bored, were a little more general; but it is curious to find that a man, specially distinguished for taking his own independent way in life, and that a most individual, not to say eccentric, one, should have been alarmed by his own early inclination to be all things to all men-a delightful faculty, however, which he retained, in the midst of a life more unfettered by other people's opinions or by any conventional rule than almost any other of his generation, to the very end.

There is nothing more charming in these youthful letters than the cordial and genuine response of this spoiled child to the affection lavished upon him. His mother's advices are not

only received well, but asked for with a sincerity that cannot be doubted-a very unusual trait in a young man of twenty-one; and the chance references to his father, still papa to the homeloving young adventurer, are always delightful. Had papa but been there, he and Lowry would have waited for no escort, feared no harm, but set off lightly on foot through the prohibited Nepaul. There is no such travelling companion, the young man says, as papa. The men of his own age are as nice fellows as can be, whom he delights to emulate in every bodily exercise, to win a genial triumph over either in the elephant-hunt or the new polka, making a friendship for life even out of a ball-room rivalry; but, after all, there is nobody like his father for real companionship. Nor is there anybody so acute as the Judge in appreciation of character, a power of which so many people are destitute, but which Lowry modestly concludes he has himself inherited, as he has inherited the knack of pleasing people from his mother's side of the house. His eagerness to get home, to have post-horses ordered for him on the Kandy road, to lose not a moment in reaching his mother's side, shows how little the adoration of that home had spoiled him. Thus ended the young man's first essay of independent life,-a sufficiently wild flight to

END OF THE HOLIDAY.

53

be the first, and a most characteristic one. He had been filling the position of private secretary to his father since the return of the family from Europe three years before, at, he somewhere says, the exceedingly liberal salary of £400 a-year. And it was on his savings that he accomplished the rapid and brilliant rush through India which was the beginning both of his life of adventure and of his literary career.

54

CHAPTER III.

THE BAR-THE EXPEDITION TO RUSSIA.

It was perhaps scarcely possible that after such a taste of freedom, and of the social life for which he was so admirably constituted, the young man should settle down again at Ceylon to his irregular bar practice and existence of official routine. He had already felt the difficulty of being called upon to plead "before papa," which lessened his sphere, and he was also aware that his knowledge of law was imperfect for one who intended to adopt that profession (which, besides, he hated). Accordingly but a few months elapsed before his mind was finally made up to quit Ceylon, and try his fortune in the greater world. The time was approaching at which Sir Anthony would be able to resign his appointment, and retire from public work, and it was decided that Lady Oliphant should accompany her son home, en attendant the happy period fixed for the Judge's retirement; for